Happy Halloween 2008

Happy Halloween from us to you!

The Clone & The Cat

Marc, Garret and Katie walked our neighborhood with the neighbor kids. Conner stayed home again to pass out candy. He still manages every year to end up with his own stash! Everyone had a great time.

Sarah, Katie, Allie, Natalie

Pumpkin Carving

On Thursday we carved up our pumpkins. Finally, this year, mom got away with just "helping". Conner did his all by himself. Garret and Katie drew their own faces and I helped with the knife (much to Garret's dismay). It is pretty funny how their pumpkins ended up taking on their personalities. Katie drew a cat face, Garret's face was funny and even sported a "mustache", Conner's face was intricate and artistic. They had lots of fun!

Happy 7th Birthday Katie!

November 2, 2001 Katie arrived to make our family of five complete! Hard to believe it has been 7 years since that day. I will post some photos of the frog cake and swimming party after Saturday. I made my first slide show... I think I went a little overboard with all the photos, but it was fun. Some of the photos are courtesy of Arlynn Caldwell, Katie's former daycare teacher who is a photographer now. Thanks Arlynn :o)

Pumpkin Patch

Marc and Conner are off hunting today, so Garret and Katie and I headed off to the Pumkin Patch. We carefully picked out three large pumpkins. Waited in line for way too long to have them weighed. And I am pretty sure I paid way too much for 3 pumpkins. The "patch" was a crazy place today... lots of people and kids were running everywhere. Now...

we have to cut, scoop and carve for Friday! The kids are getting excited.

The Mini Cooper Comes Home

We went to Northwest Mini today and picked up the new car! It arrived more than a month early, Surprise! Marc is pretty excited to drive it to work tomorrow. Of course, now gas has come down in price about $1.00 per gallon since we ordered it. We got the "mini" rundown from Rachel, the Mini-Cooper expert. She said it is important to call the parts by their appropriate names, so it is the "boot" (trunk) and the "bonnet" (hood). Many fancy features and I can tell this car will be lots of fun.

Weekend in Cle Elum

We went to Cle Elum this weekend to go camping/hunting at the Bay's property. They have a 20 acre parel of land that has 6 camping spots. There is power and water to each spot so we decided to start calling it "Bay State Park". The kids had fun riding quads and playing outside. Conner and Tyler did go hunting a couple times (Marc got a deer last weekend, filled his doe tag at the Hunt club with Chip and his Dad). The weather was nice but chilly, definitely fall weather.

Cyndie and Katie sitting by the fire.

Chad, chopping wood, we did not pay him any money to do this!

Conner rolled the quad in a mud puddle. Lucky for him, he was just dirty afterward. I am not a fan of motorcycles or quads... makes me nervous. Now, I remember why.

Conner's Braces

Here we go again... Conner got a full set of braces in his mouth today. The hygenist that was putting them on was laughing at me when I asked, "where are the bands?"... she informed me that they don't do it THAT way anymore... I guess a lot has changed in 20 something years (okay maybe more...)

Garret's Day

Not too often that Garret gets to be the one in the spotlight.. I have always secretly felt bad that he is a middle child. I know someday, he will be a strong man because of it. Today at church, all of the 4th graders were given their own bible. A small rite of passage, but still important in Garret's eyes. He longs to be like his big brother and hates it when he and Katie do the same things at the same time. So, just for today, he is the star! We took him to four weeks of bible classes prior to this. He was a serious student, highlighting with his yellow marker the passages he was told to. He asked many questions (surprise). Congratulations Garret!

28 days until Halloween and counting...

I guess I am old... I have forgotten what it is like to anticipate the excitement of Halloween and all of its "trappings". Garret has had his costume picked out for ohhh, 2 months at least. He found it in a catalog but I refused to order it because it was more than $50... so off to ebay we went and found it for about $24 (same exact thing too!) Katie just got her costume the other day at Target. She wants to be a "cat" but did not like the idea of mom making it, so we found an animal stripe dress with matching ears and tail, we can work with that. I heard Garret talking in the car today about his treat carrier and plans for walking the neighborhood...did I mention we still have a whole month to go? Plus, I have 24 more kids at school that keep reminding me about it too! If anyone who doesn't know me that well is reading.. the only real holiday I enjoy celebrating is July 4th. It is hot, there are no gifts to give, no preparation necessary, and did I mention that school is out?

My plan this week was to get costumes from years past on ebay to sell. So far, I have made $58 and I still have three to sell. I like selling on ebay, but I don't always find the time to take the photos and get the postings done. But, Halloween is around the corner and who knows.. maybe someone is dying to be Darth Vader? or a butterfly/princess/unicorn/fairy thing? Ninja anyone?